A-MAZE-ing sense of direction...

     As we ran back towards the entrance, THEROS kept waving back at us to remain as quiet as possible. I wasn't sure how quiet we could be running along a stone floor, but I tried none the less. I get the impression that he was doing it to try and catch the sounds of other footsteps or voices, and to mask our approach towards the entrance. Luckily there had only been one path leading straight ahead from the lava basin so there were no other paths to be distracted by. That and we had left a trail of torches along the walls back to where we had entered. We rounded a corner, almost out of breath and wheezing slightly, the lava basin now in sight, but we couldn't see the guards anywhere near it, nor could we see them up ahead. As we stopped a few feet from it, THEROS was the only one not nearly bent double from the sprint; he looked around with a look of total bewilderment on his face...

"Where are they? They should be... here..."

"Maybe they were ahead of us slightly? Maybe we missed them by too much..."

"Then why could we here them? If they were returning from the room with the Eye of Ender in it, why had we not met them heading there or back...?"

"... Good point... Maybe they went another way... Although there was only one path leading to the room and we had taken it..."

"Is it possible that we heard them through the floor or an adjacent wall? I think this place runs directly above the tunnels and passages we had led ourselves around before..."

"I doubt it... They are bound to be very thick walls and floors, definitely not thin enough to hear voices through. Are you sure you weren't just hearing things? We didn't hear anything..."

THEXIS pointed at me and I shook my head. I hadn't actually heard anything either but it was worrying that at the time it had spooked THEROS sufficiently... There was no smoke without fire, although t was odd that there now seemed to be no trace of anyone other than us despite essentially everyone taking the same path.

"Maybe if we hurry back down to the sub-levels back towards the exit, we might catch them up..."

"But that place is a maze. If we make it back to the exit without getting lost I'd be surprised, but doing that whilst running and trying to pursue some guards we can't even prove are there..."

"I'm not giving up now! Come on, let's go!"

"More running...?"

THEXIS's whine was quickly stifled by the sternest look I've ever seen THEROS give to someone, and a few seconds later we were running back through the maze of corridors and passages, every single one looking identical. How THEROS was able to determine which way to head back was beyond me... Then again he did have that condition which allowed him to retain a much greater volume of detail to visual images, hence him being an excellent navigator and cartographer... Glad it was him and not me... I would have got us lost by now!

----

     We lost them... Well, we lost them if we actually were following someone, but we couldn't prove that... Somehow - I don't know how- we found our way back along the massively long bridge that led out onto the hill we had had to scale first. Me and THEXIS were still a little amazed at how quick we had managed to get out as well, and we hadn't stopped running the entire time either. After we reached the end of the bridge, THEROS looked over the edge in all directions, trying to find the guards that we were meant to be following. They were nowhere to be seen... We got the impression that THEROS was convinced we thought he was going loopy, but I doubted it; he always seemed so sure of himself, and why would he make something like that up, especially now?

"They were here at some time within the last few minutes, I'm sure of it!"

"How can you tell? All we can go on is the fat that you heard voices that we never heard... We never saw them, and you never heard them after the initial voices..."

"They were there, we must have been on another level then so that's why we couldn't see them... We need to go after them!"

"No, we need to rest... We practically ran that entire section of tunnel, and it's getting pretty late. They are likely to have two now, according to you, but we have two as well."

"Exactly! We need to get to the last one before them!"

"Look, they are only human, just like us. That means they are likely going to need a rest too. I say we rest now and head to the next location after that rest. They are either going to rest at the same time or after us, so provided we set off early tomorrow, then we should get there before them."

I pointed out that it didn't matter who really took the last Eye as both sides no possessed at least one Eye. That meant no side could activate the portal without a certain degree of cooperation or stealth... In COLUS's case it was likely to be the latter, although with HoN Co. they could easily just send their Elite in to take them. Now though I had begun to understand where THEXIS was coming from about hiding the other Eye we had in a separate location. If HoN Co. came across us now whilst we were unprepared then we could end up with none of the Eyes, and maybe even dead.

"Syeonyx is right. We can't activate the portal and neither can HoN Co. so we're at a stalemate. If we head out early tomorrow we have a chance of getting there before the guards do, but for now we just need to rest."

THEROS eventually gave in; instead of heading back to find a tower, we set up camp at the very end of the bridge. Once we had a fire going, and had our sleeping gear laid out, I was finally able to relax, and that was despite my surroundings. I was hoping that THEROS had just imagined those voices, but with the lack of the Eye we were looking for in the basin of the room we had headed towards, I can only assume they had taken it. Only how long ago we didn't know, but we had to be close to them, surely...

Syeonyx signing off